Automating RDS file generation – Radio France

Context
Radio France’s Digital Department needed to produce standardized RDS files for French broadcasters. The legacy workflow relied on an aging Excel workbook packed with dated formulas and links to databases, plus extensive manual checks. The goal was to industrialize generation of records (frequencies, technical specs, templates), while staying within O365 and SharePoint.

Challenge
Consolidate heterogeneous sources, encode complex business rules for auto‑fill, ensure near‑complete validation, and output files in the Excel format expected by broadcasters—all within a tight April–May 2026 window and without changing tools.

Solution
We built an Excel‑based application: data ingestion and transformation with Power Query, a VBA automation engine to apply business rules, parameterized templates, and generation of final deliverables in Excel format. The Claude in Excel add‑in supported formula refactoring and coding assistance. SharePoint handled secure storage and collaboration for inputs/outputs and validations.

Results
1,200 RDS records generated in a single automated run. Production time per batch dropped from roughly 2 hours to 1 minute, with a 99% validation rate. The outcome is a repeatable, documented process aligned with the O365 stack, ready to be replayed as data or template requirements evolve.